


Weight of the Steel

by crackedteacup



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: F/M, Hallucinations, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Mid-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-02-04 09:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18601717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackedteacup/pseuds/crackedteacup
Summary: It’s hard to tell what’s real anymore.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Post Revelations 2, pre-RE 6, so mid-2011?

Title comes from the song _Flat of the Blade_ by Massive Attack.

_I'm not good in a crowd_

_I’ve got skills I can’t speak of  
Things that I've seen will chase me _

_To the grave_

 

* * *

 

She sat at the lobby bar in the luxury hotel, staring into her reflection in the mirror-backed bar, idly swirling the amber contents of the glass in her right hand. Her left hand was firmly clenched into a fist, her short fingernails digging into her palm. She stared into her face between the dimly-lit top-shelf bottles. The face which she had recognized less and less over the years. It hadn’t been a shock when she saw a few prematurely gray strands in her red hair and constant dark circles under her duller blue eyes. Stress had been her constant companion for the past twelve years, constantly following her and waiting to strike in the moments when she briefly let her guard down.

Lately her life had been passing at a torturous crawl, consisting of meeting after meeting with a side of paperwork. She had barely been back from Russia, from facing off with the remaining Wesker wonderchild, when she was set upon an army of people who had endless questions and tests for her. Quarantine after returning from another outbreak was almost relaxing, at this point. A week or so in which no one really talked to her outside of brief examinations and blood tests. She could just lay down and relax for once, fall into a medicated slumber. A long time ago, she had been afraid of needles. It was like remembering a different person, someone long dead.

That Claire had also been outgoing and friendly despite living through personal tragedy. But that Claire had also never seen someone eaten alive, that Claire had never seen a man’s body rip and tear and mutate into a monster, futilely shooting at it until the clip in her gun was empty.

That Claire hadn’t been dragged by her hair and stomped on by someone she knew her brother had once trusted with his life.

It all went back to him.

Her fingernails dug deeper into her palm, the sharp sting bringing her back to the surface. Claire sipped the whiskey, barely noticing the burn produced by the liquor.

Her 32nd birthday the other week was no real exception to her daily routine—a call from the Burtons, a separate call from Moira, another from Sherry, a text from Leon, and silence from Chris, then more meetings. She couldn’t fault Chris for not calling her. She didn’t even know where he was. His BSAA work took him all over the world, just like her work with Terrasave did, but even if he was stateside he hadn’t reached out in a while. She knew he had his demons, too. More demons than her, even. She couldn’t be too harsh on him for forgetting something as insignificant as a birthday.

She knew it hurt her brother, her childhood protector, that Jill still wasn’t the same after two years, even after dyeing her hair back to its proper brunette shade and however many hours of therapy. He hated seeing his loved ones in pain. Claire sighed lightly, taking another sip from her glass. Before Jill had “died”, Claire knew her brother was ready to propose to Jill. Now they also stayed largely apart, Jill staying in a specialized center located in D.C. close to the Terrasave headquarters. Claire visited her when she had time.

It all went back to him, again. The reason for Jill’s glassy eyes, the reason for Chris’ anger. _Him_.

_I don’t want to think about this right now._

She was sick of the functions she had to constantly attend throughout the recent weeks. This particular banquet dealt with Terrasave fundraising for the coming year, since federal funding had taken a large hit in part due to the fact that her boss, Neil Fisher, a man trusted by just about everyone, had turned out to be working alongside the surviving Wesker sibling, providing her test subjects and viral samples. _Bastard_. To think that she had actually slept with the man once, an alcohol-fueled mistake she had regretted the moment she woke up, it brought bile to her throat every time. It made her especially nauseous to relive the memory in her nightmares. The nightmares where Neil had mutated but he continued to rut over her in that hotel room.

Claire clenched her fist tighter, the sting growing sharper.

Claire took another sip, the warmth of the liquor starting to force her body to unclench. Her hand followed, laying flat on the bar. A quick look at her palm showed red crescents, the self-inflicted wounds slowly welling with blood. Claire sighed, grabbing a napkin to place below her hand.

Claire still longed for closeness, longed to show the people she cared about just how much they meant to her. But for their safety and hers, it was best to stay away. Survivor’s remorse, a terrible liquid form of guilt and self-pity, was another constant companion, married to her constant nightmares. She felt guilty for not being able to be there more for Sherry, for giving her to the government in the first place. She had left, chasing the brother who hadn’t even bothered to let her know that he left the country, and in the process, left the orphan behind. It had been a long time ago, sure, and Sherry still saw a mother in her. It wasn’t like Claire and Leon had a real choice when the US government came asking for Sherry.

Claire still felt guilty for it.

And Claire thought about Steve, whose body never got a proper burial, joining the hundreds of thousands of victims of Umbrella. One of _his_ many victims.

She downed the rest of the glass, setting the empty glass onto the bar top, moving to hold her face in her palms, closing herself off to the world while still hearing the speaker in the ballroom talk all about Terrasave’s noble endeavors. He made a joke about something and the laughter from the ballroom made Claire wince.

She vaguely heard footsteps behind her when she heard the sound of a chair scraping across marble. A man sat at the bar two seats away from Claire, and immediately she stiffened when she saw a tall man with slicked-back blond hair in a sharply-tailored suit. Her heart stopped entirely for a beat before she noticed that it wasn’t him. No sunglasses, for one, and the bartender was still alive, not some mutated creature. The bartender smiled and took his order. He smiled back. Just a regular business man who happened to be blond.

Claire tried to correct her breathing, closing her eyes and counting her breaths. Counting was a good way for her to ground herself in these situations. A trick that one of her many therapists had taught her. A trick she learned as a child—after her parents died.

She opened her eyes, politely declining when the bartender offered her another drink, giving the well-meaning girl a clipped smile. One was fine. Any more and she wouldn’t be able to defend herself if the building was attacked. She would be vulnerable.

 

 

A sound like a plug being pulled from a drain filled her ears as she descended, the lights around her dimming to a dark ruddy ambiance. 


	2. What Once Was

A sound like a plug being pulled from a drain filled her ears as she descended, the lights around her dimming to a dark ruddy ambiance. Her breath cooled in the air before her.

“Why Miss Redfield, what a _pleasant_ surprise.” She recognized that voice behind her from anywhere, deep, drawling, and utterly cold.

Just about as cold as the blood in her veins at that moment, as cold as the air around her.

“Wesker,” she whispered.

“I should hope that you remembered me, Miss Redfield. Or is it ‘Mrs.’ now, _hmm_? Any lucky men in the picture, _dear heart_?”

“This isn’t real,” she whispered, “you’re dead.”

She closed her eyes again, mentally counting her breaths to correct her breathing.

_One. Two. Three_.

“I take that as a no. Such a shame, I remember you as a girl. Feisty, so full of life, a catch for any young man. I suppose no one ever met your standards? Or perhaps they never met mine.”

“You’re _dead_ ,” Claire whispered harshly, her eyes clamped shut, so tightly that white spots danced behind her eyelids.

“But I feel _very_ alive, I assure you.”

A strong hand reached out, grabbing her left shoulder and squeezing, a fraction of the power she knew was in those bloodstained hands. Her left shoulder throbbed as if knowing who was touching her, muscles remembering a combat boot stomping on that very place 11 years ago.

“Don’t touch me!” Claire yelled, jerking her shoulder away from Wesker’s grasp, turning around to face the ghost, but she immediately stilled when she noticed who the hand belonged to. The hand, no longer oppressive and blood-stained but unsure, belonged to one of the Terrasave interns, who looked scared to death at the way the fierce redhead had jerked from the touch. The business man and the bartender glanced at her, uneasy after her outburst.

“I-I’m sorry Ms. Redfield, you just looked like you were zoning out there. I d-didn’t mean to startle you,” whimpered the intern, a recent graduate from the looks of him, “The conference is over, we’re heading in for the night soon, but we might go to the concierge lounge upstairs if you would…would like to join us?”

 “No.” Claire said shortly, before amending, “...No, thank you. Sorry, I’m just tired. Long flight and all of that,” she said, forcing a clipped smile onto her face.

“No problem,” sighed the intern, relieved to not have been fired, or punched for startling the semi-legendary Claire Redfield. “See you tomorrow, Ms. Redfield.” The intern quickly excused himself and met the rest of the core staff by the elevators, going to the private bar space upstairs. These fancy hotels and their multiple bars, Claire thought shortly. As a girl she would have never pictured herself in one of these ostentatious hotels. Especially not as a guest. But life hadn’t worked out how she had planned had it? Her dreams of being an astronaut, or a rock star, had died with her parents, the first blow to her childhood optimism. Her dreams of being a social worker, or a therapist, had faltered due to her poor freshman grades at the college. And those dreams had, finally, been murdered in Raccoon City.

 

* * *

 

 

Claire remembered one of the first times she met Chris’ boss, it had been during a break from school. She had been excitedly recounting her first semester to Chris and his cool teammates, Jill and Barry and the rest, talking all about how much she loved her Psych 1 class and how it was just so cool, how she finally thought she had finally found her major. It was hard not to love Claire, with her bright smile and her red bangs, her eclectic style filled with reds and purples and oranges, bright colors which only accentuated her smile and her warm blue eyes.

“Hmph.”

Everyone had stilled at the sound of the Captain. Everyone turned to face the man, who leaned up against the wall, having slunk in moments prior, arms crossed, sunglasses affixed to his face. Claire had even stilled, for all her bravery and spirit. The Captain clearly reveled in their intimidation of him, a small smirk lifting the corner of his mouth.

“Psychology. The study of choice for all the students who can’t handle the more intensive sciences,” he said, shaking his head as if disappointed, "or the choice for the students who prefer to bar hop over study for any meaningful length of time."

Claire had bristled at his snide comment, her lips pursing and eyes narrowing. Chris saw the bubbling volcano, reaching out for her shoulder, but even he couldn’t stop her retort,

“Oh yeah? You’re probably just one of those people who diss psychology because you know you need therapy.” She said, proud of her quick thinking, showing her age and naivete above all else. She stood with her hip out, the image of a bratty teenager in front of a cold, blond, cop.

Her pride in herself disintegrated as everyone around her gasped in pure shock.

The Captain stared at her, the black lenses of his sunglasses boring into her soul for a minute, his mouth completely straight. To everyone’s surprise, and adding to their fear, he only snickered, barely a small huff of air, and shrugged.

“Maybe I do. Have a good day, Miss Redfield. And men—” he glanced around, “—and lady, don’t you have paperwork to finish? Get to it.”

With that he pushed off the wall and walked to his office, the click of his door marking the real end of the STARS’ good afternoon.  


It never was the same after that.


End file.
